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Has your school got what it takes to be a Skoolbo SuperSchool? Could your students achieve one million answers on Skoolbo?

248 schools have done just that and made it into the Million Club Hall of Fame. With over 50,000 schools playing Skoolbo worldwide, there’s no doubt that this is an elite club, but also one that comes with exclusive member benefits. Our SuperSchools show an average improvement of 34% in literacy and math skills, proving that the more children play, the more they learn!

Every question answered on Skoolbo represents a challenge, the chance to make mistakes, and the opportunity to learn and improve, with a healthy dose of fun thrown in! Just think what rewards a million answers could bring your students…

One million learning opportunities!

One million challenges overcome!

One million smiles!

You’ll need everyone on board, but this is easy! With Skoolbo, learning can happen at home as well as in school. Every answer counts – wherever and however your students access Skoolbo.

The students of Beverley Manor Elementary School in Staunton, VA, have been on our radar ever since the very first Skoolbo World Cup held in December 2014. They blasted onto the scene by placing 3rd overall in that inaugural competition, and have been a force to be reckoned with on the Skoolbo Leaderboards ever since.

This past month, the students once again came in 1st for Team USA in the international competition, with a 2nd place overall finish! We are so proud of the massive, school-wide effort put forth by the students, teachers, and principal, and we are so delighted to see their accomplishment recognized by their local media outlet WHSV Channel 3.

We have to agree that Beverley Manor’s consistently high performances and presence on the leaderboards speak to the wonderful leadership at the school. The coordinated efforts and enthusiasm at Beverley Manor Elementary can serve as an inspiration and blueprint to other schools just getting started with Skoolbo.

We look forward to seeing what wonderful things BMES can achieve in 2017!

Skoolbo is proud and honored to announce that we have received the prestigious TWA Certification! According to the Teachers with Apps website, this special Certification Programwas designed to recognize and applaud apps and connected tools that are exemplary in educational content, presentation, and execution, as well as overall user experience.We had the great opportunity to chat with Jayne Clare, CEO and Co-Founder of TWA, and this is what she has to say about Skoolbo:

Skoolbo is an all-encompassing educational tool for students, teachers, and parents covering basic reading and numeracy skills through student-driven gameplay. Teachers With Apps highly recommends this outstanding program for its ease of use, quality content, and engaging nature! A rare find.

Thank you, Jayne, for the kind words! With TWA’s seal of approval, we’re sure that we will now be able to reach even more students in the USA and fulfill our dream of every child learning to read and gaining confidence with numbers.

We also want to take this moment to thank all of our teachers, parents, and children who play a key role in making Skoolbo the game that it is today! We know that you have unlimited choices when it comes to educational programs for your children, so the fact that you chose Skoolbo over all of the other apps means a lot to us. It is the motivation that keeps us going everyday. We appreciate you!

Are you new to Skoolbo and would like to learn more about the game? Click here to find out more information.

It is widely accepted that learning to read is an essential life skill, even if there is not total agreement about how this skill should be taught. Once acquired, reading is used everyday but it seems that fewer and fewer people are choosing to read in their leisure time. This decline is not restricted to adults who arguably have less leisure time at their disposal. Children are also choosing to read for pleasure less often.

But is this important? If children have the ‘basics,’ does it matter what they do outside of school? How can immersing yourself in a good book be beneficial, especially in a day and age where ‘reading for pleasure’ feels like a thing of the past?

There is a growing body of educational research evidence that links a number of benefits of children reading for pleasure. The key findings include:

Reading for pleasure is important for both educational purposes as well as personal development and it has positive emotional and social consequences;

There is a positive relationship between reading frequency, reading enjoyment and attainment;

There is a positive relationship between reading for pleasure and attainment in a wide range of educational areas, including math;

Reading enjoyment may be more important for children’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic status.

This last point is of particular interest because despite increased focus and, in many cases, increased funding, a child’s socio-economic background stubbornly remains the single biggest indicator of a child’s future educational outcomes. What if developing a love of reading holds the key to levelling the playing field for so many children?

The research also examined children’s perceptions of readers. It concluded that elementary-aged readers and non-readers believed that their friends saw people who read as happy and as people with a lot of friends.

It seems that the argument in favor of reading for pleasure has been won — so how can we encourage children to choose to read in their own time? One of the reasons cited for children avoiding books is a lack of reading confidence; thus, removing some of these early barriers becomes essential. Introducing children to picture books with simple vocabulary is a great start.

We know that once children can read a wide range of common words by sight, they are more likely to go on to become confident, fluent readers. These common words are those that children typically recognize within approximately 3 seconds. Amazingly, 50 percent of our written material is made up of these 100 high-frequency words and this is where game-based learning can help. Games like Skoolbo enable children to learn these words effortlessly and in a hugely enjoyable way. Children love games and are fascinated by new technology. Teaching these early reading and spelling skills in an exciting interactive learning environment allows children to get more from their reading. This builds confidence, freeing them to tackle more challenging words and focus more on the story or poem’s meaning which, in turn, leads to increased enjoyment.

Confidence, however, can be fragile and fleeting if we are not careful. Children love sharing books with friends and trusted adults and they are often very happy to read aloud when they are very young. Reading silently or ‘in their head’ is a skill that develops much later, but reading to an adult in a formal school setting can be daunting for some children. It introduces an element of judgement and can result in a drop in confidence. Innovations in educational technology can help children develop as readers independently and free of judgement until they are ready.

Zippy Shine is one such innovation which allows children to practice and record their reading independently. In this reading and performance app, children can choose from a range of exciting adventures with familiar characters or they can try their hand at telling a joke, re-recording as many times as they like until they are happy with their performance. As they listen back to their own reading, they instinctively self-assess, recognizing where previously un-noticed punctuation may have indicated a pause or change of intonation. They begin to have an awareness of audience and develop their performance accordingly. Children remain in control of their own reading development and only share their performance when they feel they are ready. Teachers will soon be able to receive recorded performances via their online teacher dashboard, providing opportunities for encouragement and informing planning for the next guided session. Similarly, parents will soon be able to listen to the recordings in their parent dashboard, which will give them the opportunity to work directly with their child on their reading skills. It can also be a great source of pride and enjoyment for both parent and child.

Technology may not be able to replace that special time curled up in your favorite place with a slightly shabby, much-loved paperback but it can go a long way to help our children develop the needed skills to get there!

A huge congratulations to Team USA for fighting an inspiring battle and securing the #2 spot in the 2016 Skoolbo World Cup! We had a slow start but eventually fought our way past Team New Zealand. In the final half of the competition, Team USA managed to pull in front of Team GB, first by mere thousands but finally by a comfortable 30,000+ questions. In the end, Team USA answered a total of 753,527 questions on Skoolbo. And, students all over the world answered more than 10.4 million questions!

We saw some of our old favorites from previous years coming back with fire and fury! Beverly Manor Elementary continues to hold its title as #1 US School for the second year in a row, this time answering over 248,000 questions. We also saw Irma Dru Hutchison come in strong once more at #2 US School and fourth place overall with 147,742 questions answered! Spring Creek Elementary, Melba Elementary, and Fremont Elementary joined in this year’s top 10 leaderboard to round out top 5 schools for Team USA!

We also welcomed back Carina Hernandez’s Class B4 as the #1 Class for Team USA for the second year in a row with 47,208 questions answered! Class Fleury and Winch27 from Fremont Elementary were so close to one another; ultimately, Class Fleury came out on top by a mere 126 questions! We are so proud of both classes for being #2 and #3 Class in for Team USA.

All in all it was a challenging and exciting World Cup. Three cheers for all of the students who participated around the world!

It’s the start of day three and the leader boards reveal that Team New Zealand, Team GB and Team USA are fighting a close battle but it is Team Australia who are seemingly impossible to topple!

However, here at Skoolbo, we firmly believe that anything is possible so come on Team USA, let’s get ready to take on the Aussies!

We are so close to the half million answer mark and now that Team Australia and Team New Zealand are sleeping we have a chance to cover some ground and get more US schools into the top ten. Here’s how the leader boards looked this morning –

Australia’s John XXIII Catholic Primary School and St Clare’s Primary School are looking comfortable at the top with St Michael’s School sneaking into fourth place. Team USA had a good day and have four schools in the top ten. Beverley Manor Elementary are continuing their good run as are Irma Dru Hutchinson Elementary and Melba Elementary School. Spring Creek Elementary are also up there flying the Stars and Stripes!

Don’t be fooled by Team New Zealand’s temporary absence on the schools leader board. They are holding on to second place overall and have some dedicated classes determined to oust Team Australia and claim glory –

By lunchtime yesterday, children from across the globe had collectively answered over one million questions! We thought that was pretty amazing until we took a look this morning…over three and a half million questions!

This is an awesome achievement and everyone taking part has every reason to feel enormously proud. Of course it is made all the more special as every answer given represents another step a student has made towards mastering a new maths, literacy or language skill!

Whilst we are delighted with our collective performance, it is the accomplishment of individual territories that will determine the overall winner and the USA is ready for the challenge!

This is how the leader board looked yesterday –

The amazing effort by St Clare’s PrimarySchool on day one meant that they managed to hold on to the top spot despite a strong performance from Team GB’s Knockloughrim Primary School. Team New Zealand’sGreytown School and Papakura Normal School did well and secured prestigious places in the top ten as did Team USA’s Beverley Manor Elementary. The seemingly unbeatable Roseville Public School, St Michael’s School, John XXIII Catholic School and Yugumbir State School stayed in the top ten but it was ‘all change’ only hours later –

Irma Dru Hutchinson Elementary pulled out all the stops to also edge their way into the top ten for Team USA – incredible effort! Can Team USA lift themselves off the bottom? We think we can!

The wait is over, the 2016 Skoolbo World Cup has commenced!
Team Australia and Team New Zealand have made a flying start, although the time difference has given them a few more playing hours (as it stands). But it’s only day one and we have already surpassed the global one million answer mark! Fantastic!

Australian schools have dominated the leader boards on the first day, although Team GB have nudged their way into the top ten. As it stands, St Clare’s Primary School are looking hard to beat but a concerted effort from Roseville Public School could topple them. The other two of the four top spots are being held by St Michael’s School and John XXIII Catholic Primary School. This has all been happening while Team USA sleep so make sure you eat a good breakfast. it’s your turn now!

It’s time to show the world what Team USA can do. On Tuesday the 6th of December, children across America will compete with children in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom for the title of World Skoolbo Champion. Answer as many questions as you can on reading, math and languages during the 4 day event!

Here are the wonderful students from Papakura Normal School in New Zealand in anticipation of the challenge-

Be sure to share with us any videos or pictures from your classes as we get pumped up for this year’s Skoolbo World Cup!Stay tuned for more news on the World Cup as we lead up to December 6th…